


我爱你有几分

by aiineslin



Category: Disco Elysium
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-16 02:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21500662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiineslin/pseuds/aiineslin
Summary: it is a waltz - sort of - one that is learnt from mimicking the posters pasted on tearoom walls and black and white illustrations in books. kim smells of lemon soap and hair cream.
Relationships: Harry Du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi
Comments: 34
Kudos: 246





	我爱你有几分

**Author's Note:**

>   
> songs that were in my head while writing this  
> the legendary teresa teng's the moon represents my heart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj4bnnek9MU  
> lady lamb - little flaws:  
> air - alone in kyoto  
> gus dapperton - my favourite fish
> 
> art by the wonderful hannah!!! : https://i.imgur.com/nesrIeK.png  
> admire her talent on https://www.tumblr.com/blog/enterthepale and https://twitter.com/hannahl2315

Somehow or other, life slips back into normal.

He goes back to the life of a lieutenant double-yefroiter. There are cases on his desk, and he needs to shift them. 

His squad waits; they are counting down the days to the next break from reality.

But it is different, this time.

Kim moves his belongings from the 57th to the 41st with typical efficiency – he appears at the station door two days after the transfer is finalised with a slightly battered box holding a tin mug, a portable radio and its accompanying pair of headphones, his ledger and a stationary case bursting at the seams.

That was it.

“Do you not have anything else,” Harry had asked. His gaze had flicked to his desk when he spoke. One can barely make out the colour of the desk under the teetering mountains of paper, opened files, torn-out notes and scattered, crusted mugs. There are legends of a family of mice making their home in Harry’s table.

Kim follows his gaze.

“No,” says Kim, and that was that.

*

It is different, this time.

*

The days pass by quicker.

Kim integrates with the squad quickly – they are pleased with his professionalism, levelheadedness and almost supernatural ability to put up with Harry’s non-sequiturs. Where Harry meanders, he is a straight arrow, cutting through the bullshit with unerring patience and doggedness. The bully boys and ragtag criminals of Jamrock quickly come to know of his existence, the quiet Seolite who tags behind Harry, who still hasn’t adopted the Jamrock Shuffle.

(He refuses to adopt the Shuffle. He still wears a politely bemused look when he sees Jean and Harry pace and jog around various criminals and evidence.)

And just like that, five weeks pass by. The caseload only increases, never decreases. Kim seems to shine the most in those times; he makes a request from Purchasing for a new set of pens and extra forms, and Harry sees him smile quietly to himself when the first box of beautiful, high-grade ballpoint pens get delivered to his desk.

Somehow or other, Kim ends up staying over with Harry on some days – when the caseload grows particularly heavy and they work too late into the night.

“It makes sense,” Harry had told Kim the first time he floated the idea two months into Kim’s transfer. Kim has been drinking more and more coffee lately. They do not seem to help with his ever-darkening eye bags. “La Rue des Saules Pleureurs is an hour away from the 41st in the mornings, give or take a traffic jam or two.” He thinks for a moment. “Also, the 41st is haunted. McLaine says that whenever he sleeps over in the office, he always hears giggles in the air vents. You don’t have to say yes n – “

“Yes, I can stay over.” Kim cuts him off. He adjusts his glasses in a way that Harry has come to recognise as <Kim being embarrassed but not wanting to show it> and he says, “Thank you.”

*

It makes _sense_ , like what Harry says, to have Kim stay over with him when there is too much work. Kim doesn’t have to wake up too early in the morning to drive to work, and he can go out with the squad for late night dinners after a day of cracking cases, and best of all, no-one feels guilty about making Kim stay too late because _hey_ , he can crash at Harry’s, who lives just one street away from the station.

Somehow or other, Kim’s belongings in Harry’s apartment grows. When he first started staying over, he kept all his bathroom supplies in his overnight bag. One morning, Harry fumbles his way to the bathroom to find that Kim has added a small blue cup holding toothbrush, toothpaste and dental floss to the bathroom shelf. Harry grins to himself as he takes in the sight.

Kim even fixes the faulty water heater. He puts up with it for three stayovers, before he comes into the station with a toolbox on the fourth stayover. “Your water heater is broken,” Kim informs Harry flatly. “I know winter is ending, but.”

“It’s invigorating,” Harry tries to say, but a loud snigger by Jean drowns out his half-hearted protest.

*

Yes, winter is ending.

The snow on the streets turn into a slurry, and the little birds come out to sing. The first buds of flowers peek out shyly from the undergrowth.

Crime also increases.

The ice over Central Park Lake thaws, and a rusted car bobs to the surface, containing two bloated bodies. Their bloated, rotting nature does not hide the far too neat patterns incised into their bellies, nor their missing lungs.

 ** _CULT MURDER SHOCKS REVACHOL,_** bellows the newspaper headlines that day.

Of course, the case lands on Harry’s table.

But it has been four days since he has gotten the case, and another corpse has turned up in a Villalobos back-alley with missing lungs and the all too familiar patterns cut into their belly.

The city froths under the outcry led by the Revacholian newspapers.

*

It has been nine days since the first two corpses has surfaced, and Kim is with Harry in his apartment. The files and documentations are spread out over every flat surface, and Kim has even bought a foldable chalkboard to put in the corner of the living room.

They have been looking over the same documents for the past two hours, long after Jean and Judith have left for their respective homes.

There is an all too familiar headache pounding at the sides of Harry’s temple; a headache – that he _knew_ could be cured with the copious application of pilsners.

(He hasn’t drunk much over the last few months. A bottle of cider here or there, a pint of dark beer, but nothing too strong, nothing too heavy. Jean is keeping count, Harry knows. And every time Harry foregoes the second bottle or pint, Jean buys the round.)

He scratches at his notepad absentmindedly. A thicket of dark, slashing lines has grown under his pen. The weight of someone looking at him makes him lift his head up.

Kim is surveying Harry with an inscrutable expression on his face, and when he catches Harry’s gaze, he looks down and away quickly, before standing up abruptly. “Let’s do something else,” he suggests, lacing his fingers together and cracking them. “We’ve been looking at this for too long.” He looks at the wall clock hanging above the window. “Hmm.”

Harry looks up at the little, considering grunt. He watches Kim pad over to the radio, watching the man twist the knobs, adjusting it to the right station.

 _你问我爱你有多深_ –

The slow, melodious notes of a woman’s croon roll out into the room. Harry perks up.

“There are Seolite stations operating here?”

“There are stations catering to all tastes,” Kim says shortly, and he turns to face Harry.

He remains beside the radio, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Harry blinks.

There is something familiar here – something –

(Dora, standing by the radio, holding out her hand – the most beautiful smile in the world lighting up her face.)

Harry rises to his feet, pads over and he holds out a hand.

( _Please don’t let him misread this._ )

Kim takes it.

This close up, Kim smells of the Frittte hair cream he uses and lemon soap. His hand is slightly cold and clammy, a slick of sweat covering his palms and Harry winds Kim into his arms, and he is grinning.

“Khm,” coughs Kim, but Harry can see the tips of his ear turn bright red and by now, Harry knows Kim well enough to recognise his small tells and he can feel Kim’s heart go thumpity-thump against his own bouncing heartbeat, and honestly, Harry is smiling so hard that he can feel the muscles in his face ache.

The song swells, and they stumble into something approximating a waltz. It is the sort of waltz that one learns from looking at illustrations and still photos in magazines. They wobble across the room, and somehow, manage to avoid stepping on each other’s feet.

"It’s a good karaoke song,” Harry says, with all the expertise of one who has spent way too many hours under the dim lights of a karaoke booth.

“You’re not wrong,” Kim says into his chest. “It’s been covered in nearly all the Seolite dialects.”

“What’s it about?”

“The moon, and love – ...” Harry feels Kim shrug. “This station is dedicated to Seolite love songs. Solely love songs.” They almost roll into a chair, and Kim adjusts their trajectory, sending them inching past it. “They play this on the dot every hour.”

Kim has heard this song a million times – but, Harry somehow knows, Kim will never get tired of it.

They waltz under the yellow light of his living room lights, stepping carefully around furniture and odds and ends, and at the end of it, Harry’s headache has gone away.

*

A lightning bolt of inspiration strikes him two nights after The Dance, and Harry leads the squad to a small Dolorian church located at the arse-end of Old South, where they uncover the cult and the three preserved lungs they have collected. Apparently, they were planning to collect lungs every time a Dolorian date of significance rolled around.

“We did it for _love_ ,” the High Priest had declared solemnly to the countless reporters that had ambushed the squad and their new prisoners at the station, and of course the reporters had went wild for that.

Later, the squad goes out to party. Harry had the honours of choosing the spot, and they wind up at a bar with a karaoke stage, and Kim goes very quietly, “Oh no,” when he sees the mic set-up and the disco ball glittering above the low stage.

“He does this every time we crack a hard case,” Judith informs him as they slide into their booth.

Jean and Harry are already perusing the selection of songs in the worn-out old book that the waitress had handed over to them immediately when she saw them walk in.

Trant laughs, and pats Kim sympathetically on the back. “It’s a tradition.” He smiles. “Welcome to the 41st.”

“Everybody has to sing,” Jean adds, plopping himself down beside Kim. He grins at the lieutenant. “It’s the first time I’ll hear you sing, hey?”

Harry has made a beeline for the stage; the bartender is already putting a tape into the system.

“This song goes out to my squadmates,” Harry announces into the mic, lifting a fist into the air. “I’m singing The Smallest Church in Saint-Saens.”

“Oh _no_ ,” says Kim with feeling.

“You’ve heard him sing this before?” Jean turns to him, quirking an eyebrow.

“It _is_ his go-to song,” Trant reminds Jean, his head already tilted attentively to the stage.

“I have,” Kim says, and he left the words, _“He sang like a dying cat.”_ unsaid.

And then Harry sings.

Jean is watching Kim, and after a minute passes by, he leans over and says, “The shitkid sings better when he’s not drunk off his ass.” There is something of pride in his eyes when he looks over at Harry. “I haven’t heard him sing like this for a while,” he adds as an afterthought.

Kim closes his mouth.

*

Kim doesn’t really like to sing, but he can respect tradition.

He finds the song he is looking for hidden all the way near the back pages, and when he makes his request, the bartender nods her respect. “Good song,” she says. “Haven’t heard it in a while.”

He sees Harry blink when the first notes roll out. 

“月亮代表我的心-“

And then Harry is smiling, small and sweet and altogether disbelieving.

”I dedicate this song to Harry and the 41st. Thank you.” He ends it there, a short and sweet dedication.

The 41st almost lifts the roof with their cheers.

*

They head to Harry’s apartment together at two in the morning, and under the guttering streetlights, Harry slings a companionable arm around Kim’s shoulders.

Kim doesn’t make a move to remove it, and they walk in silence, leaning against each other.

“Rent is cheaper if two people are splitting it,” Harry breaks the silence. “And I stay really close to the station. I can walk to work. We can walk to work.”

The full moon hangs low over them.

Kim looks up at it.

She is almost absurdly beautiful, a circle of pale light shining over the city. Revachol is quiet. In this hour, in this time – there are only the two of them, walking under the yellow streetlights to a small, dingy apartment.

“You make a good salesman,” says Kim. He wriggles out from under Harry’s arm, and he takes Harry’s hand into his.

They walk home hand-in-hand, their boots tromping down Revachol’s streets in sync.

**Author's Note:**

> tiny headcanon here—— kim doesn’t speak seolite but since the matron at his group home constantly blasts seolite songs, he’s picked up her tastes wrt seolite songs. while he is unable to speak or understand much of the dialect of his bio-family, he’s able to understand/parrot key phrases/words from matron’s dialect. and one of the few things he’s learnt is to be able to sing _that_ song in full, and in reasonably good pronunciation after years of karaoke nights with matron and the other kids


End file.
